Fade Into You (Shaken Dirty #3)(14)
Chapter Five
Sadly, the universe had other plans for her, and none of them included an earthquake or hurricane or any other major natural disaster hitting Austin, Texas, at that exact moment. More was the f*cking pity.
Jared wasn’t being obnoxious as he grinned at her—he looked more amused than anything else—but still it mortified her. Still it had her wanting to run or hide or at least bury her head like an ostrich and pretend if she couldn’t see them, then they couldn’t see her either.
But that old song by Martha and the Vandellas was playing in her head—“Nowhere to run to, baby, nowhere to hide”—and so she just stood there like a deer in the headlights as Jared smirked at her and Wyatt studied her, his eyes roaming over her from head to toe like he owned her. Or like he wanted to…
She shut that thought down fast, shoved it deep inside of herself where she didn’t have to examine it. Where she didn’t have to admit that a part of her was more than a little intrigued by the idea of belonging to Wyatt, even for a short while.
“You’re our new social media director?” Ryder asked with a smile. “That’s cool.” He got up from the table, extended his hand. “I’m Ryder. It’s nice to meet you.”
She almost laughed at the idea that he thought he had to introduce himself to her. Like she didn’t know who he was? Like most of the Western World didn’t know who he was? Then again, she’d always heard the guys from Shaken Dirty were really nice, really down-to-earth, and not overly affected by the fame that had skyrocketed them so quickly to the top of the charts. It was nice to know some of the rumors in this industry were actually true…and not just the bad ones.
She took his hand, ignoring the instinctive nervousness that came from having all that lead singer sexual magnetism focused directly on her. “Nice to meet you, too, Ryder.”
“Thanks for helping us out with the social media stuff. Caleb was telling me the label had a plan to change up how we relate to fans on Twitter and stuff. You must be it.”
“I am,” she agreed, mouth dry and pulse pounding at the half-lie. Lying didn’t come easy to her. And betraying these guys’ trust right out of the gate, when they’d been so welcoming? Her stomach churned with discomfort. “I’m really excited to get to work on the new campaign.”
“We like excited around here.” His grin turned just a little wild. “Don’t we, guys?”
The others made muted sounds of agreement, and she found herself blushing for the second time in as many minutes as her eyes met Wyatt’s once again.
“So, introductions,” Ryder continued. “That’s Quinn over there, attached at the tongue to Elise.”
Quinn flipped him off a second time, but he got up to shake her hand as well. As he did, she noticed that his nails were painted the same hot pink as Elise’s motorcycle.
He caught her looking and just grinned. “My woman likes to mess with me when I’m asleep. Turns out there’s no nail polish remover in the house.”
Elise snorted. “Sure, play the victim. Like you didn’t spend half the night before cutting up my underwear.”
He shrugged, did the best he could to look innocent despite the bedroom eyes and tattoos that made him seem anything but. “Crotchless panties. It’s a thing. Right, guys?”
“Absolutely,” Ryder agreed, totally deadpan, and even Jared and Wyatt nodded along. “I always say, a girl can never have too many pairs of crotchless panties.”
“Exactly what I tried to tell her. In fact—”
Elise narrowed her eyes at her fiancé as she cut him off. “If you think I don’t know where the new hiding spot for your Twinkies is, you would be mistaken.”
“As I was saying,” Quinn told the room in general, looking as innocent as a tattooed rock god could. “My credit card’s upstairs in my wallet. Feel free to buy as many panties with full crotches intact as you would like, my love.”
“And Jared says you’re stubborn,” she teased, patting the guitarist on the cheek before sauntering toward the door. “He just doesn’t know you like I do.”
As soon as she left, the other three guys cracked up. “Wow,” Wyatt said, totally deadpan. “I go to rehab for a couple of months and come back to find you totally whipped.”
“You only say that because you didn’t live through what she did to Quinn’s Twinkies the last time he really pissed her off,” Jared told him. “It was ugly.”
“So, so ugly,” Ryder concurred with a shudder.
As the good-natured ribbing continued, Poppy’s fingers itched with the need to be recording this for Snapchat. This was the kind of thing the band’s fans would love, the kind of interaction that would have them glued to social media for hours talking about the guys of Shaken Dirty and who they really were. The fact that she wasn’t actually here to revamp their social media didn’t matter. Marketing was her second love—right behind rock and roll—and just watching these guys for five minutes had given her a million and one ideas about how she could use this to garner them more social media reach and, in turn, more fans.
Get them a head start on the road to being legends…
“So that’s Quinn,” Ryder said, interrupting her train of thought and dragging her right back to the embarrassment of her current predicament. “Jared’s the one who can’t stop grinning like an idiot, and Wyatt’s got that ridiculous excuse for facial hair—”